You're absolutely right. Dishonest may not be the word, it could have been a misunderstanding or inadvertently misleading, but yes, we have to be completely honest in our quotes.
From the transcript:
COOPER: "Repealed and there's no mandate for everybody to have insurance, what's to - why would insurance company (sic) not have a pre-existing"
TRUMP: "Well I like the mandate. OK. So here's where I'm a little bit different. I don't want people dying on the streets and I say this all the time. And I say this - look, I did five speeches, maybe six speeches today. We had a lot of rallies. We had of thousands and thousands of people. We get big crowds."
That said, it appears that it is you, not the OP, who were mistaken about the context of Trump's "mandate" statement. True, he was pretty hazy and vague about what he meant, but the fact that he connected the mandate to "people dying in the street" indicated that Trump wasn't talking about "pre-conditions". Trump was talking about the mandate for American's buy mandated insurance.
By the way, my insurance costs have gone up 4x, topping out at $1800 a month, so I can't afford health insurance anymore. Moreover, Obamacare cancelled my good, $900 a month (family, now $1800 for my wife and I) Cadillac policy just as I was diagnosed with heart disease. I needed emergency heart surgery, but for the first time in 40 years, I suddenly had no health insurance. It took me two months before I could get Obamacare, and get scheduled for surgery. TWO FREAKIN MONTHS. So, this is personal, for me.
Now, I have no insurance, (but I have a "medi-share" plan).
If Trump is for an individual and/or employer mandate he is off my list of candidates.